1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a digital apparatus capable of performing telephone communication, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for sharing state information of a digital apparatus with another digital apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Presence information is a user state indicator that conveys the ability and willingness of a potential communication counterpart to communicate. A client is commonly installed in a communication device of a user such that communication can be performed. A user client provides state information, which is used in representing presence information of the user, to a server or a service provider supervising communication through a network connection. Accordingly, the state information may be stored in the server, and may be distributed to other users. The state information is applied to various communication services, and specifically, to an instant messaging service.
State information is user related information such as, for example, a current location of a user, available connection information for a user, or application specification information including, for example, instant message related information, information indicating whether a user is online or offline, and a Push to Talk over Cellular (POC) specification attribute. A user is required to subscribe to a user's required state information, and other users certify that the user watches their state information.
State information is used only in an Instant Messaging (IM) service, and cannot be extensively used in other communication services or shared between different IM services.
Although different types of messenger services exist through which chatting can be performed between subscribers in the IM service, the state information cannot be shared between the different messenger services. For example, when user A and user B have both subscribed to both messenger service A and messenger service B, user A must separately set state information in messenger service A and messenger service B, and user B in messenger service B cannot determine the state information of user A in messenger service A.
Moreover, state information used in the IM service is not available in a telephone call based communication service. Specifically, users can not set their state information related to a telephone communication service or a text message service, and share the state information with other users.
The state information of counterpart devices is not available in the telephone communication service or the text message service, resulting in users making a call or sending a text message without considering the states of the counterpart devices. Further, the counterpart devices are inconvenienced by telephone call or text message reception at undesirable moments.